Need to vent

My son-13 has autism. I've struggled with getting family members to understand what that means for him. While some of them have tried to be understanding in the best way to deal with him during an elevated moment, others insist that they have all the answers and end up exacerbating the situation.

This is my issue with my mother. She really does mean well, but her understanding of disability is super outdated. She was probably the main culprit of frustration since he started displaying the signs of autism. She insisted boys are slow and lazy, which isn't true and refused to believe he had autism even after he had been diagnosed.

I must point out that she has had minimal exposure to him over the years due to her unwillingness to try a different approach. My son has previously exhibited aggressive behaviors but they are far and few now. They generally are the result of someone unintentionally provoking him to an elevated mood and then not being able to diffuse the situation. He gives out so many warnings that he's about to have a melt down, but in no way does he go from 0-100 in an instant.

That's what happened last night. My mom has been getting my kids off the bus in the afternoon and hanging out at my house until I get home from work. I called to tell her I was running late because of the rain and she said everything was ok then but she had an incident with my son earlier. I tried to get as much information as possible, but she refused to talk and hung up on me.

This resulted in an argument later when I got home and she just shut down and refused to talk and walked out of my house. When she left my kids told me a different version of events. This is the best I can interpret what happened by putting both stories together.

My son came home in a bad mood because he's been waiting for his saxophone to be fixed and it's not yet ready (it's been less than a week since it went in the shop, but even with visuals he struggles with the concept of time). My mother asked him to do his homework and he didn't feel like it. She then told him he was lucky he didn't have to do the homework my daughter had because hers was more difficult and his was easy. She told him to read what she had to do and he interpreted it as my mother telling him to also do his sisters homework. He proceeded to crumple up her paper and my daughter got upset.

My mother then tried to force him to apologize to her and ranted to him about his behavior, how he shouldn't act like that because my mother has been so good to him and he is ungrateful etc. That's when my son went to put his hands on her neck. He wasn't going to hurt her, as my mother said he never actually squeezed her and just had his hands there, but he was already provoked to the point of a melt down and couldn't verbalize that he had enough. She then proceeded to threaten him physically and twice more he put his hands on her neck without ever applying any pressure.

She told him to go into his room and he did and locked the door and hid underneath a blanket until I got home. She then stood at his door and told him how terrible he was and how if he ever touched her again she would punch him in the face and he'd be found in a mess in the floor when I get home. She also told him she's never doing anything else for him. He's not welcome to go camping or fishing in the summer. And she told him she should break his saxophone because he doesn't deserve it.

Let me just clarify that she had a small scratch on her collarbone and he had scratches all over his face and arms. She claimed she didn't know when they occurred. She said when he "attacked her" she reacted and used her "techniques" she had been taught when she was a bus driver. She never specified what those techniques were, but she stopped driving bus over 20 years ago.

I tried to talk to both of them about it, but she was so focused on blaming him for being wrong, she refused to acknowledge how she could have possibly provoked it or how she failed to see warnings.

I've made other arrangements for my kids. I really feel like they need a break from her and she needs a break from them. She's fine with them as long as their are no issues. Her parenting methods were terrible when I was a kid and she doesn't realize how bad she was. I really don't want to go into details, but my other siblings feel the same and were all well into our 30's and have kids of our own. But even putting all that aside, she's my mother and I don't want to be the asshole who refuses to let her have anything to do with them. I've been trying for years to get her to understand that using a different method doesn't mean there are no consequences for behavior, but she refuses to see it that way.

I'm planning on talking with her in a day or so when things have calmed down. I want to give her some more information on different methods like the nurtured heart approach, but I don't know how she'll respond to it. I also have been unable to convince her that she can't take his outburst personally. As I said, this has been over a decade of a struggle with her and I'm trying to not be the bad guy. She's not a bad person, she really does mean well, but I have no idea where to go from here. Thanks for listening. All feedback is welcomed.